[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15022-15024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I take this time for the purpose of inquiring 
about next week's schedule.
  I yield to the gentleman from Maryland for an update on next week's 
schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding and 
appreciate his question.
  On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour 
business and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several 
bills under suspension of the rules.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning hour business 
and 10 a.m. for legislative business. We will consider additional bills 
under suspension of the rules. A complete list of those bills will be 
announced by the close of business tomorrow.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m., and on 
Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m.
  We will consider the following fiscal year 2008 appropriation bills: 
Homeland Security, Military Construction-Veterans' Affairs, Energy and 
Water Development, and Interior and Environment.
  Members should be advised that the official photo of the 110th 
Congress will be taken on Tuesday.
  In concluding my comments, the appropriation bills that I read, 
Homeland Security, Military Construction-Veterans' Affairs, Energy and 
Water Development, and Interior and Environment, will be completed next 
week.
  Let me reiterate that. They will be completed next week. I am hopeful 
we can complete them by the close of business on Friday, but they will 
be completed next week.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the time and his 
response. Just in response to that, I do know that the Appropriations 
chairman today said that Members would expect to be here on Saturday if 
those four bills are not done prior to Saturday. Is that the leader's 
view as well?
  Mr. HOYER. What the chairman and I have discussed is that we are 
going to complete these four bills next week. As the gentleman knows, 
as a result of the supplemental taking up a substantial amount of time 
of the committee and of the committee's chairman and the committee 
staff, we are behind in our schedule. It is our intention, as the 
gentleman knows from my previous statements privately and publicly to 
him and in the colloquy, that we will complete 11 of the 12 
appropriation bills prior to June 29 when we are scheduled to take the 
July 4 work period break. The Defense bill has been decided to be done 
mid-July. Other than that, these bills will be done.
  In order to accomplish that objective, our schedule will be directed 
not so much at time as work. And we will complete the work. So I say to 
my friend, Saturday is a possibility. The chairman has said Saturday is 
a possibility. I am hopeful that will not be necessary. I am hopeful 
that the subcommittee chairs and the ranking members will be able to 
work together, as was done last year in terms of schedule and time, so 
that we can complete our work by Friday at a relatively early hour. I 
am hopeful we can do that.
  Mr. BLUNT. Is it the gentleman's view, I guess I am repeating what 
you are saying, I want to be sure I have this right, that you still 
intend to have 11 bills done by 3 weeks from tomorrow?
  Mr. HOYER. Yes, sir.
  Mr. BLUNT. June 29. And however many days it takes to get that done, 
that is your intention?
  Mr. HOYER. That obviously is an average of a little less than four 
bills per week the 3 weeks that are available to us. We have four bills 
scheduled next week. We will not have the Defense bill scheduled. Labor 
and Health may be the biggest bill thereafter that we will consider 
prior to June 30.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that. The calendar is one thing. I 
hope that the calendar doesn't suggest that we are rushing through 
these bills in any way. Of course, for the time I have been in the 
House, and I believe the time my good friend from Maryland has been in 
the House, the appropriations bills have come to the floor under an 
open rule. The general exception for that has been, again, under both 
sides of the leadership, the Legislative Branch bill, which, for its 
own reasons, often has a structured rule.
  Does the gentleman anticipate that we will still have the open rules 
that have been the tradition of the House on these bills?
  Mr. HOYER. I do anticipate that, and I would look forward to having 
discussions with the gentleman at the end of next week, Thursday or 
Friday. Hopefully that is feasible. We hope it will be feasible.
  As you know, last year, as I reiterated, there were time agreements 
between the chairman and the ranking member that allowed us to effect 
reasonably efficient consideration under the open rules that were then 
in place. We anticipate that, and I hope that is the case.

                              {time}  1715

  But I want to reiterate what is self-evident. Our commitment has been 
to pass 11 bills by the end of this month. That gives us three full 
weeks to do that. We think that is doable.
  Again, the defense bill is not in that mix. The defense bill arguably 
could have taken substantial time, and that will be done in July.
  I say to my friend that I contemplate proceeding as we have done in 
the past and look forward to discussing that with him as we proceed.
  Mr. BLUNT. The open rule we have used in the past has been truly an 
open rule where Members would come to the floor and, as long as they 
were, under the appropriations process, finding a way to pay for their 
proposal, would offer that proposal on the floor. There was no pre-
printing requirement. I hope that continues to be the same.
  I yield to the majority leader.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding. It gives me an opportunity 
to respond to two things.
  First of all to his specific question, and that is what I contemplate 
at this point in time. I have not fully discussed it with the chairman, 
but that is what we contemplate. As far as I know, that is what the 
rules will provide for next week.
  When I said it gave me an opportunity to comment on the general, I 
know there has been some consternation on your side of the aisle, Mr. 
Whip, with the pre-printing requirement.
  As you know, one of the things we were concerned about was that 
matters would come to the floor with little notice. My view is an open 
rule allows somebody to present whatever amendment they choose to 
present. But requiring that it be preprinted so it gives notice to 
Members it seems to me not to be contrary to the concept of an open 
rule. It simply means within the concept of an open rule Members will 
have notice as to what amendments people intend to offer.
  We think that is not undermining of anybody's right to offer any 
amendment they choose to, while at the same

[[Page 15023]]

time giving the body notice of what they can contemplate and consider 
what they might want to do.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would say to my friend that I am sure we do think that 
undermines a right, and that would be a major problem as we look at 
this. Let me give you an example why it undermines a right.
  First of all, this has been the procedure of the House for a long 
time. In the 12 years of the leadership by my side, we allowed this 
process to happen for 12 years on virtually all of the bills. One 
reason you want to do that is in this process where, first of all, the 
Member is obligated to present a way to, within the structure of that 
appropriation bill, shift money around, if that Member is successful, 
you don't know that in advance.
  I am pausing here because I think it is a very important point. You 
don't know that in advance.
  And on the floor under the rules we have used for well over a decade, 
probably into two decades, another Member could then stand up and say, 
the cut just made, the adjustment just made, I would like to propose 
that we restore part of that by taking money from somewhere else 
previously unmentioned in that debate. And you don't know that as part 
of a pre-printing requirement. It is a substantial limiting of the 
minority or the majority, and I suspect that a number of these 
amendments will come from both sides of the aisle. It is a substantial 
limiting of the Members' ability to react to what happens during the 
response to these amendments.
  I am sure that we want to talk about this in more detail and in more 
length. Because I believe the Members on our side of the aisle and, 
frankly, I think the Members on your side of the aisle who have used 
this process in the past, some with the same amendment every single 
year, some with the same positive result every single year, will see 
this as a substantial change if that pre-printing requirement was a 
requirement.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. I would reiterate, as I told my friend, my contemplation 
is we will proceed in the regular order next week. We hope that will go 
in the regular order.
  I further said to my friend that we will discuss that as we go 
forward during the latter part of the week. We hope, as occurred last 
year, there was cooperation between both sides to accomplish the work 
of the Appropriations Committee.
  We know we have had a problem. Nine of the appropriations bills, as 
you know, weren't passed last year. They were passed this year, and 
they were passed after the fiscal year not only had started but after 
the Congress in which they were supposed to be passed expired and the 
new Congress was under way.
  But I want to assure the gentleman, as I have said, we contemplate 
the regular order. What I was referring to in the second part of my 
response was the issue that has been raised not with respect to 
appropriations bills over the last 3 or 4 months but with respect to 
bills that we perceive to be open rules but with a pre-printing 
requirement. We do not think, and we will be glad to discuss that, that 
giving Members notice of amendments they may have to be prepared for 
and to contemplate and to have information about and find out what 
people might think about that undermines the open-rule concept. The 
open-rule concept, from my perspective, is that any Member who wants to 
offer an amendment that is germane can do so. And that requiring them 
to tell people ahead of time what that amendment is is not undermining 
of that right.
  However, as I said, I understand the gentleman's position with 
respect to an appropriation bill where moneys may be cut. There may be 
opportunities to add back in other places or to shift from one object 
to another. I think you are correct. It may be a more fluid situation 
that the Members confront at that point in time, and they may not be 
able to have the ability to pre-print an amendment which they can 
themselves not contemplate.
  I want to explain that I was referring more to the questions that you 
have raised, not you specifically, but that have been raised with 
reference to the differences that we have on the fact that we believe 
we have provided a number of open rules, notwithstanding the pre-
printing requirement.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his views on that.
  We do see the pre-printing requirement as not as open as the open 
rule that we used to describe and use with some frequency, but I am 
pleased also that the gentleman appears to see my point in terms of the 
appropriations bill itself. It is a much more fluid process. It 
involves proposing that money be taken from one place to place in 
another place, and so if a pre-printing requirement is on a document 
that you have no idea, frankly, what it looks like, even by the time 
the amendment you had in mind might be offered, that amendment may no 
longer be appropriate or valid.
  If, for instance, all of the money you were hoping to use for your 
so-called ``paid for'' is gone, your pre-printing requirement meant 
nothing because your source on how to pay for your better idea is gone.
  I think we are hearing each other. I hope we continue to discuss 
this.
  I would also suggest to my friend who often, and I understand how 
hard it is to resist this, has pointed out last year's work wasn't done 
and all that stuff. I will tell my friend that last year the House, 
under our leadership, passed 11 bills by the 4th of July.
  Now if at the end of this process, if our friends on the other side 
of this building, you are as challenged as we were to get it all done, 
I hope you are prepared to hear for months and months and months how 
the work was not done. We met the standard that you are setting for 
yourself.
  The previous year of that Congress, the first half of that Congress, 
we passed all 12 bills by the 4th of July. I assume your sensitivity on 
this issue will only grow if you run into a similar situation, and I am 
sure we will be glad to remind you of it. But the work of the House was 
done.
  Let me tell you one other thing that we did last year that we are 
developing great concern about and that is on this topic of where the 
Member-directed projects, the so-called earmarks, go into the process.
  Our process, more often than not, included that work being done in 
the bill with, obviously, a lack of control over the final negotiation 
with our friends on the other side of the building. But, last year, we 
had a point of order against a list that wasn't complete. Maybe there 
is some problem if there is no list, your list doesn't have to be 
complete, but a bigger problem is this idea that we are at least 
starting with the first four bills, if it is appropriate for them to 
have these projects, that the project could not possibly occur until 
you go to conference.
  I would say to my good friend that I believe our Members and some of 
yours share real concern that this removes almost all of the 
transparency from the process, and I hope we can work together to find 
a better solution than to put all of these earmarks in at the last 
possible minute so they can't possibly be looked at to any extent.
  You want a pre-printing requirement for every amendment and would 
expect the highly volatile topic of earmarks to be handled in a 
conference that the Members possibly barely have time to look at and 
the media has even less time to look at it. It is a huge problem, and I 
hope we can continue to talk about it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).
  Mr. DREIER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I appreciate what the distinguished Republican whip was raising on 
this whole issue of the pre-printing requirement. I heard the gentleman 
from Maryland talk about consternation on our side about the so-called 
pre-printing requirement, and I heard him just say from his perspective 
he believes that if an amendment is printed in the Record that in no 
way undermines the right of a Member to offer an amendment. The 
gentleman is correct, if

[[Page 15024]]

there is in fact a pre-printing requirement and a Member is entitled to 
offer that amendment. But the gentleman has just said in his statement 
that, from his perspective, this does not alter that right.
  But I think the distinguished Republican whip was right on target 
when he pointed to the fact that the legislative process, through a 
long history which extends not just decades, I would say to my whip, 
but the 200-year history of this institution, is one that says that an 
open rule is one that allows any Member through that process to stand 
up. If an idea comes to that Member that should be addressed, that 
Member has the right to do that. This new definition of what an open 
rule is is something that to me is beyond the pale and is undermining 
the deliberative nature of this institution.
  I would say to both of my friends, the majority leader and the 
distinguished Republican whip, that here we are in a position where we 
have tried our doggonedness to make sure that we have a more open body. 
That was the argument that was propounded by the Speaker on December 6, 
2006, in her great statement; and we have in fact taken a retrograde 
step on that by preventing Members from being able to have the chance 
as the legislative process proceeds to do that.
  And the notion that we would, as we begin the very important 
appropriations process, in any way impinge on the rights of Members to 
participate in this process is to me absolutely abhorrent.
  And I will say also on this issue which the distinguished Republican 
whip has just raised of earmarks, we in our reform package which we 
passed last October made sure that every Democrat and every Republican 
would have a right to stand up and bring to light any earmark that has 
been included in a bill, and it allows either through that bill and if 
not through the bill through the rule to do so. We today have had two 
votes in this House, two votes in this House; and, unfortunately, most 
Members on the majority side chose to cast votes that prevented us from 
being able to get back to just the standard that we provided in the 
109th Congress for this supposedly new and open 110th Congress.
  I would like to say to my friends that I am very troubled with the 
discussion that I am hearing as the ranking member on the Rules 
Committee; and as we proceed with consideration of these appropriations 
bills, I will assure you, Mr. Speaker, I plan to do everything that I 
possibly can to ensure that we have a complete, open amendment process 
which, as the distinguished Republican whip has said, with the 
exception of one and on occasion two appropriations bills has been 
provided as a right to both Democrats and Republicans.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman. I yield to my good friend, the 
gentleman from Maryland, if he wants to respond in any way.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I don't know that the response is necessary. I will 
say to my friend, I heard him speak a lot in 1991 and 1992 and 1993 
about open rules, about openness, and I'm speaking now of Mr. Dreier, 
and he subsequently became the chair of the Rules Committee. And his 
response was, when I raised one of his quotes, was, look, we're in 
authority now and we've found out that we can't get done the work that 
we need to get done without, in effect, shutting down the rules.
  It is very difficult now to hear him tell me that he's going to do 
everything possible to make sure that the rules are open. He had an 
opportunity as chairman of the Rules Committee, of course, to do that, 
and from our perspective, as he well knows, he didn't do that.
  As I have said before, we are going to proceed with these four bills 
in the regular order, and my friend the distinguished whip and I will 
discuss, along with Mr. Boehner and I, will discuss trying to get our 
work done within the time frame allotted to us and that is available to 
us.
  He made the observation correctly that 11 of the 12 appropriation 
bills last year were passed through this House, in the previous year 
the 12 out of 12. Or 11 out of 11. I guess 10 out of 11 the last year. 
We've added an appropriations committee. They were passed. However, I 
would remind and say once again, with the cooperation of Mr. Obey and 
with time constraints so that they could be done in a timely fashion. I 
am hopeful that we proceed that way again, and we will look forward to 
discussing it.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that response, and I would also say, 
as I recall how that process has always worked, it's usually negotiated 
between both sides at some point during that open-rule process, when 
both sides feel that there's been adequate time given for Members' 
views to be heard. I think that was the appropriate way to handle that 
then. I believe it's the appropriate way to handle that now. I hope 
we're able to continue on that unanimous-consent view of this where 
both sides are able to achieve a sense that their Members have been 
heard.
  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. I would.
  Mr. HOYER. I am confident that you and I can do that.
  Mr. BLUNT. I hear my friend, and we look forward to this process next 
week.
  I would ask, also, it has occurred to me that we've only got four of 
these bills, I believe, through the markup process. We're going to be 
asking the appropriators to mark up bills on the other topics while 
we've got appropriations bills on the floor?
  Mr. HOYER. As someone who served on the Appropriations Committee for 
a quarter of a century, I can tell you this has been done on a regular 
basis in the last Congress, the Congress before that and every Congress 
in which I've served. In every Congress in which I've served.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would tell my friend that I believe in the last five 
Congresses, the only Congresses I really have that kind of sense of, it 
was seldom done, if ever, and both in scheduling the floor and trying 
to do the job of the whip for the floor, both of which I did some of, 
that our appropriators were almost totally unwilling to have an 
appropriations bill on the floor while the Appropriations Committee 
members were tied up dealing with difficult and complicated bills, 
which all of these bills are.
  I don't think that's regular at all, though you were on the 
Appropriations Committee. I just suggest to my friend, maybe your 
memory of that is stronger from the previous decade than the last 
decade, because our appropriators were very resistant to doing that, 
and I'm sure our appropriators still will be resistant, though they 
don't call the meeting or schedule the markup.
  I would yield for whatever information my friend has on that.
  Mr. HOYER. It's my understanding, staff has just told me, that we 
have an agreement, I presume Mr. Obey and Mr. Lewis and other 
leadership have agreed, to coordinate the floor and committee work so 
as to not have conflicts. So that apparently has been contemplated.
  I want to agree with you that, generally speaking, you are absolutely 
correct. The Appropriations Committee does not like to be marking up 
bills when appropriation bills are on the floor. I agree with that 100 
percent. Mr. Obey in particular does not like that because Mr. Obey, 
either as the ranking member or now the chairman, was very engaged, as 
we all know, in the floor debates. So he was particularly not happy 
with that process, and as an appropriator, I can tell you that no 
appropriator likes to have that happen.
  Again, we understand that there has been some work on this so that we 
can try to accommodate both doing the work on the floor and doing the 
work in the committee.
  Mr. BLUNT. I am glad to have that information.

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